Campus sets new spring record for credit hours with 54,624

Indiana University Northwest announced today that its Spring 2010 enrollment numbers have jumped 14.9 percent from a year ago, maintaining a strong upward enrollment trend that began in Fall 2009. As with last semester, the university saw a 17-percent boost in credit hours over the previous year, and set a record for spring with 54,624 total hours registered.

The final spring count for IU Northwest was 5,349 students, an increase of 693 students over Spring 2009. The total credit hours increased by more than 8,000 over the previous year’s hours, which totaled 46,589.

The increases were similar to what IU Northwest experienced in Fall 2009, when 5,560 students enrolled and the total of 56,950 credit hours set a new fall record. Director of Admissions Linda Templeton attributed the ongoing enrollment surge in part to a continuing influx of new full-time students, along with an economy that still has people looking for new career options.

“A lot of it is based on the economy, in that people have lost their jobs or been laid off, or have had their hours cut back,” Templeton said. “Some people have come to us and said that they are tired of that and want a more consistent career. They know that they need a degree to generate a more consistent income.”

The quality, proximity and affordability of a local campus also makes IU Northwest appealing for families who want students to earn an Indiana University degree, Templeton said. And she credited popular programs in the School of Business and Economics, the School of Education, and especially in the College of Health and Human Services, for attracting quality students to popular fields with strong career potential.

“We are a value,” Templeton said. “If you can live at home and go to college and earn that Indiana University degree, that’s a big help to a family in these hard economic times. And, right now, we have majors in Health and Human Services that are the hottest majors in the country. Nursing, dental, radiography, health information technology, these are programs that we are known for in the region, and we’re getting a lot of students because people are interested in those majors.”

New-student enrollment at IU Northwest was up 22 percent over last year, while transfer-student enrollment was up 27 percent. Templeton said IU Northwest is typically popular with transfer students, with the number who come in from other campuses almost always much higher than the number who transfer out.

“They come here and find that they enjoy the small class sizes, and they like the fact that their professors know their names,” she said. “Many students who come here with the thought of transferring downstate wind up staying here.”

Diane Hodges, Ph.D., Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at IU Northwest, credited Templeton’s admissions team for helping to raise the university’s profile with the prospective traditional student base that has contributed so much to the school’s recent enrollment boom. Hodges and Templeton both pointed to the university’s successful emphasis on student retention as another important factor in the strong enrollment carryover from fall to spring.

“I want to give credit to all of the people in Admissions, and in Academic Affairs, and in our various academic units, for everything they have done to support student recruitment and retention here at IU Northwest,” Hodges said. “Our admissions people have done a fantastic job of making sure that our profile remains high with prospective students. Our student-services and student-life offices have been successful at creating new programs to benefit students. Our deans and our faculty have been involved in promoting their academic programs.

“We’re all working as part of one big team here at IU Northwest, and our spring enrollment numbers show that those efforts are making a difference,” she said.

Templeton’s office is already busy with college applications for Fall 2010. Applications are up 65 percent over this time last year, she said. The director attributed part of that increase to the success of College GO Week in October 2009, which gave Indiana students the opportunity have college-application fees waived for many Indiana colleges and universities, including IU Northwest.

It seems clear from the high number of applicants, Templeton said, that the enrollment boom at IU’s Northwest Indiana campus isn’t over yet.

“This is only January. A good percentage of our applications will come in between now and the summer,” she said. “So we think we’ll be on target to have another excellent fall class.”

IU Northwest joined many other IU campuses across the state in reporting stellar enrollment numbers for Spring 2010. Credit hours were up at all campuses over last year, and even preliminary enrollment figures for IU’s eight campuses showed that Indiana University set a collective record for spring enrollment with 98,999 students.